The Lady in the Magazine
by whopooh
Summary: "I had the oddest conversation with Aunt P today," Phryne said as she gingerly sat down in one of the chairs in her parlour. "She kept talking about one of her favourite magazines and its section of love stories." Dot is innocently doing some needlework when Phryne upends it all.


_This is a new story, and it comes from the challenge on AO3 of "breaking the fourth wall", that is, break the wall between different levels of fiction and reality. There are some super clever ways of mixing Miss Fisher's world with our own reality (and several on AO3 has done that), but I am keeping it all inside the storyworld itself. Hope you enjoy!_

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"I had the oddest conversation with Aunt P today," Phryne said as she gingerly sat down in one of the chairs in her parlour. She pulled up the feet under her as she watched Dot sitting in the chaise, her attention focused on mending one of Phryne's dresses. Dot's sure hand and focused look as she sewed or knitted never ceased to fascinate Phryne, who did not have the temper for that kind of meticulousness.

Dot was happy when Phryne joined her for some small talk. It was one of her favourite pastimes, doing needlework and chatting with Phryne.

"What was odd about it, Miss?" Dot asked.

"She seemed to be testing me, but I couldn't figure out why. She kept talking about one of her favourite magazines and its section of love stories."

Dot flinched as her needle drove into her finger.

"Ouch!" she cried and put her finger in her mouth.

Phryne took a sip of her whisky and put the glass back on the side table.

"I just don't understand why she'd go into all the details of those heroines and heroes," she mused, looking into the fire in the grate. "She talked about these modern women, their independent lives and their steadfast, longing lovers. She even gave me some issues for reading."

Dot, who had just managed to reposition her needle, again cried out in pain.

"Is the lighting bad in here, Dot?" Phryne asked, concerned.

"No, Miss, I don't know why I'm so clumsy." Dot put the dress down in her lap. "Perhaps it's just too late in the evening."

She reached for the lukewarm cocoa next to her.

"What… what more did Mrs Stanley say?" she asked.

"I asked why she was so interested in stories – I never knew her to be very imaginative. She said they made her think about these wonderful people, instead of about the bleak and insensitive ones she has to deal with on her committees and charity boards. Especially after that horrible affair with the poor girls and Sydney Fletcher."

"So, she likes them? The stories I mean," Dot asked.

"She says she can hardly live without them anymore, they give her so much comfort and enjoyment. And hope. She has kept them to herself because they made her feel a bit silly, but now she wanted to tell me, especially as they had started to focus on modern women. She said they reminded her of me." Phryne paused. "I would have thought she'd find that a detraction, but she continues to surprise me."

Silence fell between the two women. Dot didn't even try to pick up her work again.

"I wonder how much Aunt P actually knows about my lovers?" Phryne mused, mostly to herself, her eyes lost in the fire crackling joyfully in the fireplace.

"Is there… any particular reason they reminded her of you, miss?" Dot asked tentatively.

Phryne's gaze moved from the fire and lingered for a moment on her companion, making the younger woman breathe irregularly.

"Their lives are like mine, she says. Free and modern. Sometimes the heroine even has a black bob. She said they all seemed quite similar." Phryne paused for a moment and hid a smile. "What wasn't like me was that she often had one, constant lover she had fallen in love with, despite the odds."

Phryne took a sip of drink before continuing.

"This man has wooed and won our heroine from the boudoir to the kitchen, in offices and gardens, and once even in the cells of a police station! It's far racier that I expected from her, that's for sure. And the kissing seems rather innovative. Even more than mine, if I'm to be a judge of that."

Dot now outright blushed. She knew she had maybe gone a bit far when she placed her protagonist in a police station. She was getting careless.

It was just that the idea of her miss and the Inspector getting together had started to consume her imagination, and she'd been carried away. She felt their attraction so tangible, every time she was in the same room as them – almost as if it was another presence in the room. It had become her favourite thing to imagine what would finally make them break down and just kiss each other. Passionately and at length. She had imagined hundreds of scenarios, the one more fanciful than the other, and she loved them all. Dot might be innocent, but she had seen things and read things, and she had an excellent imagination to make up for the rest.

When her dear friend Lydia, who was a writer at one of the best women magazines in Australia, had told her she was out of ideas, Dot had offered to help.

"Why not have a thoroughly modern woman?" she had asked. "A woman who does everything the readers wished they would dare to do themselves. Don't you think they would find that intriguing?"

Lydia agreed that they would. Dot and Lydia created the stories together – Dot having the ideas and offering outlines and spectacular quotes, her friend filling out the details and elaborating the plot.

Dot nervously eyed Phryne as the latter picked up a couple of magazines and started to flick through them.

"Hmmm," she could hear her miss saying, and she decided she needed to again look busy with the needlework.

After a minute, Phryne started reading aloud.

"This is good. I wish I had done something like this… That's some great imagination."

Dot's ears turned red.

"I see the man is a very formal one, very proper… and then getting dishevelled. You even get to see him in braces and shirtsleeves. That _is_ a delightful image," Phryne said, and when Dot raised her eyes tentatively, she caught Phryne looking at her intently.

"And this! The man is a police officer, and he locks the heroine into the cells! And handcuffs her."

Dot couldn't handle the pressure anymore.

"Alright, alright," she cried, throwing the dress to the side, "I confess! It was me, I wrote those stories!"

Phryne realised Dot looked the way she would when she was especially repentant in confessions.

"It's just… I had all these ideas, and then Lydia asked…" There was a small tear forming in the younger woman's eyes. "I…"

"Don't be remorseful, Dot," Phryne said with a warm smile. "This is top notch writing, you should be proud of yourself."

Dot stopped her rambling, breathless.

"Really, Miss?"

"Really." Phryne pointed her finger into the magazine with an elegant swirl.

"This writer has an excellent grasp of detail, and character, and on building tension. I have to admit this man does sound rather delicious, and the stories give the world a wonderful insight into a modern, equal relationship. It's almost like it's real."

Dot swallowed, not sure if she dared to believe her ears.

"You should write more," Phryne continued, a small smile grazing her lips. "Although… next time, darling, try to avoid the police station? There's only so much gossip the Inspector can handle."

Dot nodded and quickly buried her face in the cocoa mug.

"But you must allow me to show these to Jack," Phryne mused. "They are quite inspirational."

Dot was sure the blush would never leave her face again as long as she lived.


End file.
